1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a manufacturing method for a high precision mold and to a manufacturing method for a multi-fiber ferrule by combining different parts of the multi-fiber ferrule made from molds.
2. Related Art
As the science progresses, a large amount of information has to be transmitted among people via internet. An optical fiber (fiber) has been chosen as a better transmission medium for the information. However, due to the limitation of the fiber, separated sectors will exist between fibers. The fiber connector (ferrule) is then used to connect these separated sectors. FIG. 1 shows a conventional multi-fiber connector, which is used to make a continuous braid type multi-fiber network and comprises a connector sleeve 1 made into a single body and a fixing element 2. The connector sleeve 1 is provided with a plurality of fiber aligning apertures and two pin aligning apertures for aligning pins. The errors on the diameter of each fiber aligning aperture and the span between the fiber aligning apertures are required to be within 1 .mu.m.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,786,002 "Guide block assembly for aligning bore forming pins during molding of multi-fiber optical connector ferrules" provides an assembly made of single-piece polished separate guide elements as the mold of a molding fiber sleeve. As shown in FIG. 2, the mold disclosed by this patent comprises a plurality of closely placed guide elements 22 with fiber aligning apertures provided thereon, pin aligning guide elements 24 with pin aligning apertures formed thereon and disposed on both sides of the closely placed guide elements 22, and elements 26a, 26a formed on the top and bottom surfaces of the closely placed guide elements 22 for supporting.
However, the above method requires high precision polishing on each guide element 22, the pin aligning guide elements 24, and the elements 26a, 26b before combining them together into the mold. This is not only expensive in cost but also not practical for mass production.